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Donna's already rattling around the kitchen, when Martha wakes. Martha can see her, through the open bedroom door, caught in the pale of the early morning sunshine. She that familiar look upon her face, does Donna; the kind of look that says she's about to come out with something completely outrageous, and almost certainly not at a volume appropriate for Martha's morning ears. Martha mouths at her pillow and wonders whether it's too late to just roll over and sleep a little more, but a peeked glance at her watch makes a mockery of that. She looks back to Donna. The redhead has the radio going, on the windowsill above the sink, and is rolling her eyes, expansively, at its subdued, smooth voice. Donna must catch sight of Martha moving, though, or waking, or whatever it is that Martha does in the last few moments before she's properly gravitated into consciousness, because she turns, then. And here she is, Donna Noble, with a teatowel in one hand, and a piece of buttery toast in the other, and she's raising her eyebrows at Martha, as though to demand, oh, come on, are you awake yet or what?
Martha sits up with a groan and a mumble; with a muddle of rumpled sheets and sleepy skin. She rubs her face with the heels of her palms, and shakes her head, slowly, in response. The sunlight, slanting in through the window behind her shoulders, from over the buildings on the opposite side of the street, soothes her aching muscles, and brings last night back to her in a rush – soldiers shouting, a pool of blood, another spot of chaos and bureaucracy, and the same old world to be saved. Right. That. Yes. There's a thud behind her temples and she wonders, caught in this crack between asleep and functionally human, before her optimism has unfurled itself from where it rests near the fireplace in her mind, why it is that she does this. She can't fill the Doctor's boots, or his Converse, or anything else for that matter. She was supposed to be a different kind of doctor. She was supposed to walk wards, check files hanging from the ends of beds, feel lucky to save just one life or two. She wasn't supposed to be saving the whole damn planet, unless you count recycling or having shorter showers. She wasn't supposed to be doing this.
Or, maybe. Perhaps – but she wasn't supposed to be doing it alone.
And the person she wants to tell, the most of all, is the one person who can never, ever hear it.
This is why Donna's the one who makes light of it all. This is why Donna teases her, calls her her good little soldier. This is why Donna laughs, loud and from the baseline of her belly, whenever anyone asks what Martha does, and Martha says she's just a doctor, you know. Martha finds Donna's amusement amusing, but not for the reasons that Donna does. There's a bitter pill to it, a bitter pull; the snag of nails against soft skin. This is why Donna's the one who watches her, in the shifting glow of the telly screen, when Martha's actually home early, and says silly, soft, sweet things that she'd probably have to kill someone else for overhearing. Sometimes, Martha thinks that Donna knows Martha's guilt; knows it, like an ancestral memory locked away with ochre and menstrual blood; knows it, like a secret that can't quite be reached. Sometimes, just sometimes, Martha thinks that's why they're together, now, in this place, in this bed, in this kitchen, fitting snug as shells, no matter what a bad idea it ought to be.
Besides. Martha's never been a morning person.
The smile she throws at Donna, now, is helpless, and tired, and half a shade from almost-miserable.
It kills her, sometimes, to wake up, here, in this flat of theirs that UNIT only pays half of, seeing as Donna's pride had almost had an aneurysm at the idea of Martha's salary giving her a free ride ("What do you think I am?" Donna had demanded, hand on her hip, not giving a damn about the fact that the real estate agent was doing everything short of selling tickets and popcorn, "Some kind of kept woman? Do I look like some sort of kept bloody woman? Really? Really? I have a job too, you know.") It kills her, because it doesn't seem right, not when she can remember the unadulterated glee on Donna's face, back when Donna had also been of the Doctor; oh, God, the joy in the woman's eyes. Donna had had a destiny, a past, a future, a timeline, everything and all, tossed into skin and bone. Donna had saved reality itself.
And now Martha is the one still walking – sometimes tripping – in the Doctor's footsteps.
And now Donna is back temping for some funny little man in West London, and bickering with her mother, and sitting with her gramps, and hanging out with the girls on Friday nights at the pub down on the corner.
Martha is the one who suffers in the face of Donna's wry shrug, and Martha is the one who twitches before Donna's amused "oh, I know, it's classified, isn't it?" comment, jazz-hands and laughter included.
Martha is the one who wakes up with Donna's hair, red and familiar and achingly human, against the warmth of Martha's own shoulder – and Martha is the one who comes home, too late, and knows that she wasn't there, again, to hold Donna through the almost luminescent mix of nightmares and dreams; subconscious universes that Martha finds oh-too-familiar, and Donna merely frowns or grins at.
Donna is the one who stands in the kitchen, now, already dressed for work, with her teatowel, and her toast, and smiles hugely in the morning light. It's the kind of smile that fills the rooms and the space between them; fills them with a sort of silent buzz. It's the kind of brilliance that skips its way down Martha's back and makes her forget that she's really bad at mornings, and really good at self-questioning. It's the kind of warmth that makes Martha wish it were a Sunday, so that Donna would be in some horrible t-shirt and no shoes; so that Donna could bring her too-soft toast back to bed with Martha, and make a mess of the sheets.
But the hum of music on the radio, heralding the news, limps its way into the bedroom. Someone's burnt down a school in Croydon. Another politician is corrupt. Martha remembers the realities of Tuesday morning, and long nights at consoles, and arguments with double-parked aliens, and saving the world, and washing someone else's death from her clothing.
It's Donna, who brings Martha her coffee. The mug is gigantic, all steaming, and so strong that Martha can taste it on her tongue before she even gets it near her mouth. It has a picture of Postman Pat on the side; Martha can't even remember where it came from. Donna pulls her hair back into a fiddly little twist, then leans towards the window by the bed, gazing critically at the narrow London street beyond, and muttering something about the neighbours. She waits until Martha has the mug firmly in her hands, and coffee settling warm in her belly, before she looks back at Martha, her eyes settling into three shades of softness, and says, low and swinging, "Morning, you."
It's funny, Martha thinks – though it really also isn't – how two words, perhaps even more so than three, can remind Martha that this, this is why she bothers. This is what makes the news on the radio fade from hearing. This, here. This, when Donna touches her fingers to the side of Martha's face, brief and warm and gentle, and undeniably hers. This, when Martha can finally smile and mean it, and Donna rewards her with a grin, then launches straight into a rant – yeah, okay, so still a little too loud for Martha's morning ears – all about her boss, and the woman at the desk next to hers, and the wacko who keeps calling her just before her lunch break ("bet he's some weird old perv who gets his chuckles out of annoying strangers, honest to God, I was telling Clare, I was, the next time he does it, I'm totally going to heavy breathe right back at him, and let's see how he likes that, then!"), and the price of milk, and how it's gone up 3p at the corner store.
And it's Martha who listens, and doesn't listen, and smiles, and snorts, and drinks her coffee, and finishes waking, and, yes, exactly, this is why she bothers. This here, this woman, this Donna.
The redhead mightn't know it – and, Christ, Martha wishes she did – but Donna Noble is still walking the Doctor's footsteps.
Donna Noble is still saving the world.